Chandlers Green

by Ruth Hamilton

  Anna, who was not given to displays of emotion, bit her lower lip. ‘I argued with him endlessly, but there was nothing I could do. So I went to live in the gatehouse. It was the talk of the village for a while, crazy Anna Chandler living in a two up and two down with geese, chickens and bees.’

  He cackled. ‘And crazy Henry in prison here, eh? We were always the talk of the village, weren’t we? One way or another, we caused some ructions in our time.’

  ‘We did. And Mother was thoroughly ashamed of us, wasn’t she?’

  ‘She was.’ His eyes closed and he pictured his mother, long hair confined in a bun, waist nipped in by tight corsetry, eyes dancing as she tried to look stern. ‘She would not let us play barefoot like the other children,’ he said eventually. ‘But we used to hide our shoes when we got outside – remember?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘And they got stolen. The Barnes children were the best shod for miles around after they found our good boots. We got the strap from Father.’ He opened his eyes. ‘I can remember then so well. I can see it all – the factory, the people who worked there. It’s yesterday that’s hard, Anna. Yesterday and today.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’ve lost a lot of recent yesterdays,’ he told her now. ‘Richard stole them from me, but he did me a favour in a sense, because he separated me from the bottle.’ Henry sighed heavily. ‘Where does it all go? You start school, leave, do a job of work, then – poof – you’re old. I am too young to be old.’

  ‘Maypole dancing,’ she said thoughtfully.

  ‘Empire Days.’ His face lit up, as if someone had switched on a lamp behind the eyes. ‘Union flags, bright faces, toffee apples, the races and the Punch and Judy man—’

  ‘That chap with the roundabout,’ she put in. ‘Remember? It got pulled along by an extremely large horse and was parked out there on the lawn. Mama served cream teas, because none of the servants worked on Empire Day. Then the singing. Remember the singing?’

  He nodded excitedly. ‘Treacle cake and coconut shies and tugs of war – oh, men were men in those days. Now they have tractors, so there’s no muscle left.’

  After a small pause, Anna spoke. ‘Yes, they were men, Henry.’

  He gazed at her, his eyes suddenly filled with tears. ‘It’s different now, you know. Things have changed. There isn’t the same division.’

  ‘I realize that.’ Her voice was a mere whisper.

  ‘You could have married him if we had been born in a different time.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Charlie Shorrocks. He was a man, he was, he was. And he loved you, Anna, loved you so much that he moved all the way to Kent when the trouble started. He went to save you any further pain. They should have let you be. They should have let me be. I didn’t marry Ellen, I married her father’s acreage.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You should have followed Charlie to Kent, Anna.’

  ‘I should have done many things, Henry, but moving to Kent was not one of them. I am a northerner through and through, as are you – I didn’t want hop fields.’ She nodded thoughtfully. ‘He wrote for a while – the postmaster kept the letters for me so that Father wouldn’t see them. Then he stopped. I expect he married some Kentish girl and forgot all about me.’

  He wiped an escaping tear from his face. Anna had been a beautiful girl in her time, but life had conspired to keep her lonely. Young people were so lucky these days, all that freedom, all that education. ‘What happened to us?’ he asked, expecting no answer.

  ‘Life,’ she whispered.

  In the hallway, two brothers and a sister stood in silence. Grandfather and Great-Aunt Anna had not always been old. Meredith dried her eyes and decided that they should make their presence known. They had listened to memories and to dreams and it had felt like stealing.

  She cleared her throat and led her brothers into the drawing room where sat two children whose boots had been stolen, whose infancy had been sunny, whose old age must be made as comfortable as possible.

  SEVEN

  The hospital was several miles away in the township of Bolton, and by the time the ambulance pulled up at the front of the huge building Sally was not making sense. Her skin, never very colourful, was almost grey, while her forehead and upper lip were covered in beads of sweat. Her breathing was rapid and shallow, her eyes seemed to have sunk and she was babbling.

  Terrified, Jean stood to one side while her friend was trolleyed through reception. She didn’t know where to go, had no idea of procedure, but a young nurse, noticing her confusion, came to her side and guided her through ten minutes of slow but necessary torture. Jean had to remember Sally’s middle name, her date and place of birth, was asked when the symptoms had started to display themselves. ‘Earlier today,’ she replied to the last question.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, she went quiet, had pain in her stomach and in her left shoulder, complained about her neck, too – then, of course, she collapsed and—’

  The girl interrupted. ‘Has she had an accident?’

  Jean felt the blood draining from her own face. ‘She … she fell. Yes, she was hurt last night. Why? Why?’ But the girl was disappearing fast in the direction taken by Sally’s trolley. Jean found her strength and tried to follow the nurse, but was held back by one of the porters.

  ‘You can’t go in there, missus. Them’s the examination rooms.’

  ‘But I’m all she has.’

  He tutted kindly and led her to a chair. ‘Are you on your own, love?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Squatting on his haunches, he took her hand. ‘Family?’ he asked.

  ‘Two sons and a daughter – they’re at home looking after their grandfather. He has just …’ Her words died. She could not explain to this stranger that her father-in-law had recently escaped confinement. ‘He hasn’t been well.’

  ‘And are they grown up, these kids of yours?’

  She nodded mutely.

  The man thrust a pen and a small notepad into her hands. ‘Give us your phone number if you have one. Let’s get somebody to keep you company.’

  She scribbled the digits and stared blankly at the floor while the porter walked away. Why had the nurse asked all those questions and what had alarmed her? Slowly, Jean raised her head and looked at the scene around her. There were people with bandages, with plastered limbs, with patches over eyes. A child in a wheelchair moaned as his mother read a magazine; two tramps staggered in and were immediately shown the door by a nurse. Phones rang, doctors drifted past, someone at the desk called out a name. The child in the wheelchair was pushed by his mother towards the area into which Sally had vanished.

  A hand was suddenly placed on Jean’s shoulder. Although the touch was light, she flinched and turned to see the nurse to whom she had given Sally’s details.

  ‘Mrs Chandler?’

  ‘Yes?’

  The girl placed herself in the next chair. ‘My, you are in a state. I’ll get one of the orderlies to fetch you a cup of tea in a minute. Try to relax. You’ll be fit for nothing if you go to pieces, eh? Come on, do your best.’

  The porter returned. ‘Your daughter and one of your sons had already left when I phoned – they’ll be here soon,’ he said before walking off towards his next task.

  Jean looked into the eyes of the nurse. ‘What is the matter with Sally? She is like family – closer than family, except for my children. She has been with us for so long.’

  ‘I’m Helen,’ the girl continued. ‘Really, I’m Nurse Hayes, but who’s counting? Now, the doctor thinks Miss Foster’s spleen is ruptured, so she is probably bleeding internally – that’s why she has been in so much pain. They’re wheeling her up to theatre now.’

  ‘An operation?’

  ‘Yes, they’ll have to take her spleen away. And she will probably be wanting blood transfusions, but the surgeon will work out what she needs.’

  Jean put a hand to her mouth for a second. ‘She can have my blood,’ she whispered throug
h her fingers.

  ‘It has to be matched. She is lucky – we have plenty of her type. I just wanted you to know what was happening. Now, who is her next of kin?’

  This was all too much for Jean. Underneath the carefully placed scarf, her own neck stung where her husband’s fingers had crushed flesh and cartilage. She could not manage without Sally, would never understand a world that did not contain her close friend and sole confidante. Her mouth opened wide and the grief and fear simply bubbled out in a long howl. ‘No, no,’ she screamed, ‘it can’t happen, it can’t. These things don’t …’ But she could speak no more, because her body was racked with sobs.

  Immediately, several nurses appeared as if from nowhere and Jean was bundled into a small room where padded chairs were arranged. This was a bad room. This was where people were told of death and disaster, she could feel it, could taste it … ‘No, no,’ she shouted.

  Forced into a seat, she found herself confronted by Helen Hayes, who brought a similar chair and sat right in front of her, so close that their knees touched. Other members of staff faded away, the last closing the door softly as she left.

  Jean fought the hysteria. ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  When a huge, shivering sigh had left her body, Jean struggled on. ‘There is no next of kin. Sally was raised in an orphanage, then she trained to be a nanny. She has been with us for well over twenty years, because …’

  ‘Take your time.’

  ‘Because she stayed on to keep house for us. She is a sister to me and an aunt to my sons and my daughter. I would trust her with my life and with any secret. There is no-one. Just myself and my family. I am probably the only person who knows her date of birth and where she was born. Her mother died in childbirth and there was no father named. I am the only living soul who knows all that.’

  The tea arrived. When the door had closed yet again, Nurse Hayes placed the cup and saucer in Jean’s hands. ‘Drink it. You may not like sugar, but it’s full of it because you need that. Now, did somebody say your family was coming?’

  The cup rattled against its saucer. It was an ugly, green thing, thick and heavy. The tea, horribly sweet, seemed to help, but it did not remove from Jean the weighty burden she was shouldering. A fall? It had been no fall. He had done this. Sally Foster was in an operating theatre because of him. She placed the cup on a small table. ‘What makes a spleen rupture?’ she asked, though she already knew the answer.

  Helen organized her thoughts, tried to remember passages from the many books she had been forced to study. ‘It can be caused by some diseases,’ she said, ‘but usually, it’s the result of a trauma. It happens to sportsmen, especially rugby players – they take some knocks.’

  Some knocks? Oh, the psychological damage had been bad enough – but this? ‘I wish it had been me,’ the grief-stricken woman whispered. ‘Why her? She is just about the best person I have ever known. She isn’t even married to him. It should have been me.’

  Helen bided her time.

  ‘He calls me the fragrant one, but he says it nastily, keeps telling me I’m a fool and ordering me to get my hair cut.’ She smiled grimly. ‘Helen?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I would love to have my hair cut, I really would. But I won’t, because he would think I had done it for him.’ She paused. ‘You won’t say anything about this, will you? I must get my head in a straight line and I need to talk to my children before I decide what to do.’

  ‘I won’t say a word, I promise. Now, will you be all right here until your people come? Because I have some patients waiting for me. If you are afraid, go to the desk and talk to the older lady – tell her to come and find me.’

  Jean nodded. ‘And you will let me know about Sally?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Alone in the bare room, Jean was suddenly overwhelmed by tiredness. She rose unsteadily and dragged three of the armless, padded chairs together, then she lay down across them, closed her eyes and fell asleep almost immediately. Just before oblivion claimed her, she realized that she had not slept at all the night before, the night on which her evil husband had attacked her. And Sally. As she drifted off, she mouthed a prayer and put her trust in God.

  Jean Chandler woke to find a familiar face hovering above her.

  Where was she? How had she managed to sleep with all those bright lights burning? ‘Hello, Dr Beddows,’ she managed.

  He helped her up and separated the chairs, placing himself next to her when the room had been set to rights. ‘Peter and Meredith have gone for a breath of air,’ he told her, ‘and Jeremy stayed at the grange with your father-in-law.’

  He didn’t need to say anything else. Jean simply looked into those gentle eyes and knew. She was alone. Yes, she had her children, and yes, her husband was locked safely away for now, but her best friend, her only true friend, had lost the battle. ‘When did she die?’ she asked.

  Mike turned away for a second. The fury in his chest should not have been allowed a seat, not in the heart of a medical man. ‘About half an hour ago,’ he replied, still unable to look at her suffering. ‘It was quick – a blood clot. She never regained consciousness.’

  Jean stared at a poster that advertised the dangers of food poisoning. ‘He killed her.’

  ‘I know.’ The doctor took one of her hands and held it firmly. ‘It is manslaughter, at least – possibly murder.’ What would she do? he wondered. Frail on the outside, presenting as a mere leaf that was pushed along by the winds of fate, Jean Chandler was possessed of sense, of that he was certain. Her children had gone outside to weep, but Jean’s eyes were dry.

  ‘There will be questions,’ he said now. ‘And a post-mortem for the inquest.’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘And your husband cannot be certified indefinitely. I have no doubt that he will buck up and behave himself and that he will be home within the month.’

  Jean shivered. ‘You were not a witness.’ She spoke softly, as if imparting this information to herself alone. ‘I was. There was just myself and Sally.’ Sally, oh, dear God. ‘By the time Henry’s minders arrived in the hall, the damage had been done. Now, there is just … I alone saw what happened.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What time is it?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s just after eight o’clock.’

  ‘My children know what happened at home, as do Henry’s minders, but I remain the only true witness.’ She raised her chin. ‘Sally saved my life. She ripped into his face, got him away from me – and he killed her.’

  Mike Beddows nodded. The false calm in her voice screamed of shock – he had seen this behaviour before, many times. ‘Try not to think about that just now.’

  But Jean’s mind was gathering momentum and nothing on God’s earth could have stayed its wayward course. There would be no move to Crompton Way, not without Sally. Could a wife testify against her husband? Could she drag her poor children through the shame of having a father on trial for murder? Sally’s room would have to be emptied. Henry seemed to be in better health. There was Aunt Anna – could she be used as a shield? Geese. If Anna came back to the grange, the geese would come, too. There was some cold pork in the refrigerator …

  ‘Jean?’

  She did not react, gave no reply. If she went now, directly from the hospital to the police station, if she showed them the marks on her neck … According to Meredith, Peter and Jeremy had met two nice girls. A trial? A murder trial? Which nice girls would want to associate with the sons of a killer? This was such a drab room …

  ‘Jean?’

  The laundry was done by village girls, sometimes on a Monday, sometimes on Tuesdays – it depended on the weather. Sally had baked some scones again yesterday. The pantry was filled with preserves, each label neatly handwritten in Sally’s careful script. He was in an institution for alcoholics. He was shut away, just as poor Henry had been.

  ‘You must eat and drink,’ advised Mike Beddows.

  ‘I shal
l,’ she replied at last. ‘I have much to decide.’

  The door opened and Peter walked in, Meredith behind him. At last, Jean awarded full attention to current circumstance. She rose and drew her children in to herself, listened while they sobbed, patted their backs, dried their eyes. ‘I know,’ she muttered repeatedly. ‘I know, I know.’

  Meredith was the first to step back. ‘We must tell the police,’ she announced.

  Jean lowered her head and thought about Meredith’s statement. ‘No,’ she answered softly.

  ‘But you have to,’ cried her daughter.

  Mike Beddows said his piece. ‘Not now, Meredith – your mother is in shock. You all need to take in what has happened here.’

  The older woman shook her head thoughtfully. ‘We know what has happened, Doctor. Sally fell downstairs and collided with the hall stand.’

  Meredith gasped – even Peter stopped sobbing. ‘What?’ shouted the furious girl. ‘What? How can you say that?’

  ‘You were not there,’ said Jean.

  ‘But your neck – the marks …’

  ‘I have many scarves.’

  The young man and his older sister stood open-mouthed while their mother lied. Was she going to protect their father? After his crime, after murder, would Jean Chandler be standing by her husband? It defied reason.

  Meredith noticed the set of her mother’s mouth, a new expression in the eyes. There was weariness and sadness, but there was something else. ‘Mother? What are you thinking of ?’

  ‘Justice,’ she replied, ‘real justice. Leave me be, Meredith, for I am in no frame of mind for discussion. But heed this – I forbid you, absolutely, to discuss what happened at the grange. No-one must hear of it. Do I make myself plain?’

  Peter was mystified. ‘For justice, Mother, you need the police, the courts, lawyers, a jury. If you leave this as it is, how can there be justice?’

  Jean studied her hands for a moment. ‘Do not confuse the two, Peter. There is the process of law and there is justice. These elements do not always coincide. Now, I am going to say goodbye to a treasured friend. You may come along if you wish.’ She left the room and the other three followed at a slower pace.